In 2 of the last 3 houses I’ve lived in, there has been a neighbor that, for no apparent reason, beeps his horn every day upon returning home. The first one would do it in the middle of the night, but this one only does it during the daytime. The beeps are long and drawn out. Is this a common problem or am I just very unlucky?
Does he do it before pulling into his driveway? I’ve seen people do this who feel the need to announce themselves in case someone might walk into their path as they pull into their driveway. In fact, I got a long drawn-out honk by someone barreling through the turn into their driveway (without braking) announcing to me that I had better not take one step farther on the sidewalk as it crossed over his driveway. If I’d have been two steps farther that day, I’d have been run over. Unbelievable, some people.
It gives the wife time to put her close on and hide me in the closet. 
missed edit
…her clothes too…
I don’t have neighbors that honk themselves, but all their friends think their car horn is the doorbell.
When I was a kid, my parents would honk as they pulled in the driveway to signal me to go open the garage door for them.
This is more of a poll than anything else, so off to IMHO.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Are there skunks in the neighborhood?
There are in mine, and the last thing I want to do is startle them.
One of my neighbors in the complex, the ones with the garage directly under my bedroom, had the automatic honk when they locked their van doors. At length, being unable to connect with them, I had to go down to the rental office and complain about it. Because it went like this;
11pm: Wife arrives home, locks door. HONK!
11:45pm. Husband takes van for an errand.
12:30am. Husband returns home. HONK! Sometimes makes several trips to and from the van, unloading things. Locking the doors and HONK every time he does so.
1:15am. Wife loads two small children into van (in the middle of the night???) and leaves, making a lot of noise and sometimes locking and unlocking the van several times as she does so. HONK! HONK!!!
2am. Wife returns, and takes several trips to unload the kids and all their crap. HONK! HONK HONK!!!
Fortunately for them, my deck obscures the line of sight between my bedroom and their van, or I’d’ve been an angry sniper some of those nights!
I recommended that they have the damned automatic horn thing turned off and pre-emptively explained that their dealership knows how to do this. To my amazement, THEY DID! They also got a lot less noisy about those middle of the night forays. I believe their other two neighbors had also been complaining about the noise and traffic at those hours. (And really, WTF was up with loading up two small kids in the middle of the night for a 45 minute trip?)
I had a neighbor whose kids were picked up every school day by someone who announced their arrival by playing ‘shave and a haircut’ on their horn. The worst part was that they would sometimes pause for an excruciatingly long time before the ‘two bits’. I worked nights and this was usually about an hour after I got to bed.
I talked to the mother about it twice, but she acted as if asking her to stop someone else’s behavior was asking far too much. When I was able to talk to the father he told me to “get off my property and stop bothering my wife” and wouldn’t listen to me at all.
The next morning when I got home from work at four AM I pulled into their driveway and played the same tune repeatedly until she came out of the house and yelled at me. Then I went home and went to bed.
That morning was the last time I heard that horn.
My neighbors teenage kids have a pair of friends who announce their arrival in seperate ways.
#1 honks his loud ass airhorn. (Which isn’t normally necessary- because his car rumbles so loudly you can hear it coming from down the street.)
#2 Announces his presence via the loudspeaker he built into his car.
This can be at anytime of day. I try to be understanding, especially when its during the day. They are kids and all. But sometimes, if my kid is being a pill and I’ve just gotten him down to nap finally… and suddenly I hear “rumble rumBLE RUMBLE <HOOONK>…” and seconds later… “waaaaaaaah” from the kids room… i just want to go smash some skulls.
(For the record- the neighbors are also generally very nice people. I’ve talked to them a few times, and it usually is resolved for a period of time. But it gets forgotten fairly quickly.)
I know that had to be really frustrating to you, but that had me laughing so hard I actually went into that body shaking laugh where no sound comes out. Perhaps I’m just punchy because of insomnia, but I had a clear picture of you in bed FURIOUSLY waiting for the ‘two bits’ part.
I dislike it when they blow their horn as they are leaving. The people at the house know they are going- why the hell does the rest of the neighbourhood have to know?
I haaaaaaaaaaaate that.
I have a neighbor who gets picked up every day at 6:45 am, and every day, her ride used to sit out in front of her house and beep.
One (vacation) day, when the beeping started, I went out there, tapped on her window, and said (calmly) “I’m sorry to bother you, but the beeping woke me up. The **only **person who needs to know you’re here is her. It’s not even 7:00 in the morning. Get your ass out of the car, and go to the door. If you don’t want to do that, you both have cell phones. Call her.” Then I waited for the neighbor to come out, and said “You **know ** she’s going to be here at 6:45a. She is, god bless her, utterly prompt and dependable. BE READY AND WAITING.”
You know what? It actually worked. Most people just don’t think of beeping as being rude, unless it’s annoying them.
I hate that more. My ex used to do that, no matter how many times I told him not to. It was like a tic. And it made me fucking insane.
No car honking, but our neighbor’s kid, for some reason, thinks 10:30 pm is the perfect time to go out in driveway and start shooting baskets. It doesn’t bother me that much but it drives my wife crazy having to listen to that while she’s trying to fall asleep.
Here’s little story for you all:
I was in my apartment one day when a car in the lot kept beeping it’s horn. It was a little toot to start with, but it kept getting more and more insistent and it was clear that the driver was getting impatient. Finally, the person was really laying onthe horn and so I looked out the window and saw that it was a parked car and a 8-9 year old was doing the honking. At about that moment, his very angry mom came storming out of the house with all her stuff to leave. She got in the car and that kid got a SLAP that I heard inside my apartment from inside the closed car, through my closed door and over her substantial yelling.
My schadenfreude was intense.
We had a neighbor not too long ago that would whistle loudly every time he came home. And I mean that ear piercing whistle that people do. Turns out his door was broke and you couldn’t open it from the outside so he had to whistle up to the 3rd floor apartment to let his wife know to come downstairs to let him in. :smack:
These same people had friends who would beep whenever they pulled up in front of the house. And then they would sit there with their windows open blaring their music until my not-so-prompt neighbor would come out of the house. Of course, this same person couldn’t park to save their life so would always be taking up more than one space or were halfway into the street. I think they were just the inconsiderate type.
And these same neighbors had a van that picked up their daughters for school everyday and would beep their horn outside the house every single morning at 6:30am. I’m assuming neighbor passed along her not-so-prompt genes to the daughters since they never seemed to be out there when the van came.
Yeah, the neighborhood has been a lot quieter since these people moved out last month. 
I’ve heard that some parents have discovered that the best way to get their young children to fall asleep is by driving around with the kids in tow until the Sandman pays a visit. Of course, your story suggests one (HONK!) reason why the little darlings were having such a hard time nodding off…
heh. Reminds me of an old skit or cartoon or comic or somesuch that I remember from years ago: the second shoe.
Basically, a guy is lying in bed, half asleep. From upstairs, he hears a “WHUMP” as something hits the floor. “Okay,” he thinks, “he’s taking off his shoes and going to bed, I can sleep after the second shoe drops.”
So he waits. And waits. He grits his teeth in frustration, waiting for the other shoe to fall. Finally, in a rage, he leaps out of bed and dashes up the stairs to the other apartment. He loudly bangs on the door, prepared to give the guy hell for tormenting him with that second shoe that never fell…
And the door is opened by a just-awakened, very drowsy-looking pirate, complete with eyepatch, a parrot on a perch in the background, and of course, a peg leg. “Yes?”
“Um. Never mind.”